Tim DeChristopher Guilty, Faces 10 Years
Tim DeChristopher was convicted last week of two felony counts for disrupting a BLM auction of more than 100,000 acres of federal land for oil and gas drilling in December 2008. Handed a bidding paddle on entering the auction site, he bid on the lots in an attempt to delay the process, a highly questionable rushed gift to the oil and gas industry at the close of George W. Bush's presidency. And though DeChristopher was quickly able to pay the full amount due- thanks to donations from supporters of his action, the BLM refused, calling the auction win fraudulent.
It was Obama's administration and Justice department which pressed felony convictions against DeChristopher. Under the rules of the trial, the jury was not told that DeChristopher was prepared to pay for the leases, nor that the Obama administration invalidated the auction due to other irregularities.
Tim DeChristopher: "I was able to explain to them why I was there, what I was thinking. But I wasn't able to introduce any evidence that supported what I was thinking. I wasn't able to introduce anything that happened before December 19th, about the corruption within the Department of the Interior in the Bush administration, or anything that happened after December 19th, either me raising the money or the auction being canceled. So, I was only able to throw my views out there as unsubstantiated claims of what I was thinking."

Naomi Klein: "DeChristopher Guilty Verdict Exposes Double Standard of How Oil and Gas Companies Privatize Profits and Externalize the Costs" (interview 3/9/11, DemocracyNow)

Recent News Briefs:
It's reported that populations of four common species of American bumble bees have declined by 96% in recent decades. Russian scientists have drilled through 4 kilometers of ice to reach the ancient antarctic Lake Vostok, frozen over for millions of years. A million pigs were buried alive in South Korea. Birds keep falling dead from the sky, the latest event in Alabama. Indian farmers are experiencing another wave of suicides. The Rhine's Lorelei claimed a toxic tanker. 3 zebras escaped from the Hearst Ranch and were shot to death by neighbors.
Germany froze sales of poultry, pork and eggs from more than 4,700 farms to stem the spread of food contaminated with dioxin. The little brown bat is in imminent danger of extinction in its northeastern core range due to white-nose syndrome. Tap water from 31 of 35 U.S. cities tested contains hexavalent chromium, which causes otherwise rare gastrointestinal tumors. Scientists have found evidence of a "drastic" shift since the 1970s in north Atlantic Ocean currents that usually influence weather in the northern hemisphere. Humans are more at risk from diseases as biodiversity disappears. A freak cold spell is draining South Korea's energy supplies, and a grand piano appeared mysteriously on a sandbank off Miami.

Assessing COP16
Prospects for progress had looked dim, but in the end, delegates at the Cancun Climate Conference (COP16) were moved to give themselves a standing ovation; some progress had indeed been made, but mostly delegates were celebrating because "the process"- the UN intergovernmental effort begun in 1992- had not utterly died.
Christiana Figueres, the UN's top climate official, said, "Cancun has done its job. The beacon of hope has been reignited and faith in the multilateral climate change process to deliver results has been restored."
Mexican President Calderon said, "Cancun has been a success for all because it has taken a big step in convincing the international community of the value of multilateralism. This has been a success for humanity and reason."
"We have moved away from the post-Copenhagen paralysis," said Claire Parker, senior climate change policy advisor with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

A nascent "Green Climate Fund" was established to help developing countries deal with climate change and steer toward green energy. A program to "eliminate tropical deforestation" was set up (REDD- Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation); Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) said of that program, "rich countries can keep polluting, and countries with forests believe they can get some money through the REDD mechanism."

But on the essential question of emissions reduction, delegates could only agree to 'recognize the goal' of 'deep cuts' in emissions, but were not prepared to specify what they would do to that end.
"Cancun may have saved the [UN] process but it did not yet save the climate," said Greenpeace International Climate Policy Director Wendel Trio (ref).

Fred Pearce, reporting from Cancun for New Scientist, was encouraged by something else he saw there:
"Cancun's climate conference was largely a diplomatic triumph. No nations promised to up their emissions reduction targets from those pledged in Copenhagen. The compromise text that the delegates applauded was only work in progress, full of pledges to settle differences later- differences like the fate of the Kyoto protocol, legally binding emissions targets and the role of carbon markets. The firmest commitment was to meet again next year in Durban, South Africa.
"And yet behind the scenes, at side events across Cancun, the architecture of a remarkable new low-carbon world was on display - a world with ambition as great in developing nations as in the rich world. Dozens of nations rich and poor, forested and industrialized, came to Cancun having put flesh on promises made in Copenhagen, many of which were unilateral and do not depend on a UN agreement at all. If the talks ultimately founder in Durban or later, that momentum might just save the world without the leadership of the UN or the authority of a UN agreement." (ref)

Latest CO2 readings from Mauna Loa: 390 ppm.

Under the direction of James Hansen, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies is focused on understanding the complexities of Earth's atmosphere and climate, and the effects of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and other 'forcings'. The website is a rich resource for those who want to look a bit deeper into the science of atmosphere and climate. Here are some current offerings:
Global Temperature and Europe's Frigid Air
How Carbon Dioxide Controls Earth's Temperature
Measuring the Greenhouse Effect
How Warm Was This Summer?
Does Black Carbon Increase Cooling from Clouds?
What Global Warming Looks Like

Kenneth Brower : The Danger of Cosmic Genius
from The Atlantic Magazine online
A most interesting profile of the math/physics genius Freeman Dyson by Kenneth Brower, son of David Brower, first executive director of the Sierra Club and founder of Friends of the Earth. The author seeks to critically elucidate the basis of Dyson's outlier opinions on anthropogenic climate change in his personality and life experience, and weaves this in with a profile of Dyson's son George who became estranged from his father and 'went over to the other side' - of Greenpeace et al. A well-written and rewarding read. (read: The Danger of Cosmic Genius)

Sylvia Earle interviewed on residual effects of the Gulf oil disaster
"Humans are the only creatures with the ability to dive deep in the sea, fly high in the sky, send instant messages around the globe, reflect on the past, assess the present and imagine the future. Deep sea creatures may live as long as we do and some may know the world has changed since they were hatched, but they do not know why and they do not know what to do about it. We do. That's cause for hope." (HuffPo interview, Sylvia Earle)

The Mermaids' Tears: Oceans of Plastic
The oceans are rapidly becoming the world's rubbish dump. Every square kilometer of ocean now contains an average of 74,000 pieces of plastic. A 'plastic soup' of waste, killing hundreds of thousands of animals every year and leaching chemicals slowly up the food chain.
The Mermaids Tears is Sandrine Feydel's film documentary of marine and aquatic plastic pollution. watch the promo clip.

Signs and Wonders
At least 4000 redwing blackbirds dropped dead from the sky over a square mile in Beebe, Arkansas on New Year's Eve. Most peculiar, the bodies examined all showed signs of blunt-force trauma. Dr. George Badley, Arkansas's top veterinarian, told NBC News that the birds died in midair, not on impact with the ground. Authorities are suggesting the birds were scared by fireworks and flew into each other. Now that sounds really unlikely. What are the alternatives? Rising pig-farm gas bubble, test-firing of exotic weapons, energy beams, acoustic bombs, a rip in space-time, a ship coming out of hyperspace in the middle of a dense flock. . . we are left to wonder.
The next day, 100,000 dead fish are discovered in a river 100 miles away. No explanations yet.
Jan 5: AP reports around 500 dead birds have fallen from the sky in Louisiana, found scattered along a quarter-mile portion of highway in Point Coupee Parish, 300 miles south of Beebe.
Update: New mass deaths of birds in Sweden / octopuses in Portugal / cows in US
Remarks by Audubon President David Yarnold

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